Palm Pre App Review: Express Stocks (Pass)
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Adding stock (left), checking stock (center), and deleting stock (right) are quite intuitive, almost like the text message app.
Handmark announced their new Palm Pre app recently in June and can currently be found in the App Catalog in the Featured Section.
The handset software company Handmark Inc. has created a well crafted app called Express Stocks. It’s a pass (on a scale of epic fail to epic pass), and almost approached epic pass were it not for how obtrusive and ugly the constant ad for Bank of America is, that essentially makes the app’s entire header. I’m sure that an ad for Bank of America would be necessary as I’m sure they bank-rolled the project, and its probable that they negotiated such an extremely loud placement of the ad, but seeing big letters telling me to sign in here when I don’t even have a BoA account is a bit over the line. They also start you out following BoA stock, big surprise.
The Express Stocks app will pretty much do everything you’d expect a stocks app to do on a piece of hardware that is virtually never shut off from the internet: everything short of actually trading online (but wouldn’t that be nice…). It lets you see stock prices in your entire portfolio in a view that is easy on your eyes upon opening, including the day’s movement in percentages. The app also features up to the minute stocks news, and even the day’s biggest movers (up or down). Adding stock is easy, taking one out of your portfolio is similar to deleting a text message (flicking it off the screen and confirming the delete). The app is obviously well thought out, and the colors make quick portfolio checks intuitive and easy to look at.